She spent about an hour more in the same spot before her patronus returned. During that time she thought a lot about what she knew had happened after the war. She made a mental list of all the important points. Number one was, of course, that the dark lord was dead. From what she had heard the remaining death eaters had run and were now hunted down by the ministry. Huge parts of Hogwarts had collapsed and were now being rebuilt, which seemed to be pretty hard, considering all the magic that needed to be channelled into the walls and staircases in order to make them shift of their own accord. Number two was that Cissa and Lucius had been convicted, and as far as she knew, Cissa had, in fact, been acquitted, though the ministry was keeping a close eye on her. Lucius, on the other hand, had, if she had understood the guards gossiping in front of her cell correctly, been sent to Azkaban, and was to be released after his case was re-examined in one year's time. Of her other sister, Andromeda, she had heard nothing, which was troubling her quite a lot, as she was sure Andie would have aided the Order of the Phoenix as best as she could, meaning she would have been in danger. Not knowing if her sister was even alive drove her crazy, so she started pacing around in a circle, or rather in a very thin oval, even though she knew this would lead to her loosing energy that she needed to preserve for her long walk through the pipe system. She was uttering to herself as she walked and anyone who might have seen her then would most certainly have thought her crazy, but maybe she had gone a little crazy due to the long years of oppression.
That didn't matter now, as she was torn out of the trance like state she had fallen into by a shimmer of silver light reflecting of off one of the dark walls. Just a moment later her glowing silver crow came into view, and, in seeing her, the brilliant bird stopped to hover still in the air for a moment before turning around and flying back in the other direction, knowing Bella would follow.
They spent the next few hours wandering the tunnels, the silvery bird leading the way, and Bella following as fast as she could.
Finally, finally, after a long, exhausting walk they reached what Bellatrix from her first year to be the landing docks for the small boats that brought the students into the castle in their first year. As sunlight finally met her eyes again after the long time underground the woman flinched, the brightness burning in her eyes. Then, Bellatrix Black smiled. She was outside, she was alive.